"Microsoft has some catching up to do. It's not a phrase you hear every day. But whether it's Apple Computer's iTunes-iPod combo or Google's advertising engine, the software maker's top executives readily admit that they are coming from behind. In a rare joint interview ahead of the CES, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer outlined their plans to catch their rivals and discussed why it's Sony that will have to play catch-up in the video console wars."

The following doesn't necessarily prove the point, and I don't even know how genuine the story is, but if there is any truth to this article (which was widely reported) then it does cast some doubt on Bill Gates's claim.

According to NPD: 325,902 Xbox 360s were sold in the US in November, compared to 556,221 Xboxs in the US in the same number of days following launch (see http://tinyurl.com/asyyb ).

[Edit] Rereading the article and other comments, I've now noticed the distinction between items shipped and items sold. So the article I quoted wasn't so relevant after all.